SALEM TOWNSHIP - Officials here have voted to drop a lawsuit filed by the previous board against residents who circulated petitions to overturn a controversial rezoning.
"There were many who saw this as a punishment," said newly elected Supervisor Fred Roperti, whose own daughter Gina was named in the suit. She was joined by a former township supervisor and respected local historian Donald Riddering, the current fire chief and 11 other residents who rallied a grass-roots campaign to reverse a rezoning.
That rezoning allowed Real Estate Interests of West Bloomfield to increase density minimums and propose a development of one home per acre instead of one home per two acres. The development, Tradition Hills, was proposed for 310 homes on 360 acres at Joy and Napier roads. The previous board also created an "urban services district" to bring sewers to the site.
The residents named in the suit were attempting to put the rezoning to a vote of the people by circulating petitions.
Development was a key issue in last year's August and November elections and is partially credited with ousting the former supervisor and one trustee and triggering the then-treasurer's decision not to seek re-election.
Clerk Marcia VanFossen and Trustee Bill Baxter, the two outspoken opponents of the rezoning on the previous board, won re-election handily.
In early April, Johnson Controls Inc. bought the land from REI with plans to build its new automotive world headquarters on the site. The lawsuit, the urban services district, the referendum vote and the question of sewers have been unresolved issues in the Plymouth Township-based company's plans to relocate, Roperti has said. The end of the lawsuit is one issue that's now out of the way.
To accommodate a development like JCI, the township is looking at creating a new zoning "research and research applications district," as described in the township's Growth Management Plan, Roperti said.
JCI has recently filed to rezone the land to office/commercial, he added.
"I think they think that's probably the zoning that we have that comes most close to what they want," Roperti said, adding that no hearing date has been set.